How to Stop Fascism (snyder.substack.com)

submitted 3 months ago by Rapidcreek@lemmy.world to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 30 points 3 months ago

Yale historian Timothy Snyder notes that voting is the most important way to stop fascism in the United States.

“Hitler came to power after an election which enabled his appointment as head of government. It is much easier for fascists to begin from within than to begin from without. Hitler’s earlier coup attempt failed. But once he had legitimate power, inside the system as chancellor (prime minister), he could manipulate it from within. In the American system, ‘voting’ means not just going to the polls yourself, but making donations, phone-banking, and knocking on doors. We are still, happily, at the stage when unglamorous actions can make the difference.”

Also, coalitions are necessary. “In 1932, in the crucial German election, the far left and the center left were separated. The reasons for this were very specific: Stalin ordered the German communists to oppose the German social democrats, thereby helping Hitler to power. To be sure, the American political spectrum is very different, as are the times. Yet the general lesson does suggest itself: the left has to hold together with the the center-left, and their energies have to be directed at the goal rather than at each other.”

[-] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

I have some hope that even on a rather lefty place like (most of) Lemmy, the dialogue among the left is a lot less tolerant of far-left absolutism than I sometimes see. Hopefully lefty infighting can take a backseat long enough for right wing threats to lessen.

[-] MagicShel@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago

I mean no, but I've long ago made my peace that I'll get downvotes from the far left when I veer away from the groupthink. Whatever. It's fine that they want to go further left as long as they vote to keep Trump out of power. I actually miss having a sane right that offers an alternative to candidates I disagree with, but right now I'm all in. You want to come destroy my suburban way of life? Sure, buddy, but let's just beat fascism first.

[-] dudinax@programming.dev 4 points 3 months ago

The left has to hold together with the center-right, let's face it.

[-] WraithGear@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

Unfortunately that may have been true before trumps first election, and the now corruption of the Supreme Court. We are at the point where we must succeed at every possible election until the end of time… and the numbers now look like absolute trash. Even if Biden wins this time the damage has been done, we can only lose footing against the slow slide into fascism.

[+] anticolonialist@lemmy.world -12 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Liberals that thought they were stopping Nazis voted for the lesser evil that always leads to right wing power. Until they realize lesser evil does not exist they will keep repeating their fuckup.

A vote for Biden isnt stopping fascism when their ratchet effect enables it.

[-] hypnoton@discuss.online 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I see this dynamic in our two party system:

The governing party makes wealth inequality worse.

The difference between R's and D's is how quickly they sprint toward greater and greater wealth inequality.

R's don't even discuss economics beyond offering meaningless platitudes. R's never use economic metrics outside national deficit and never hold themselves responsible outside cutting all the social programs. This is what they call "fiscal responsibility" (to their billionaire donors).

D's pretend to care about economics and do use a few metrics but always deceptively. They talk about jobs gained but never the conditions of those jobs. They talk about inflation slowing but never talk about the inability of the bottom quintile to build wealth.

Thus economics is guaranteed to worsen no matter who is in power. Which when this gets bad enough, the center folds, because very few can tolerate the status quo. So people rush to political radicalism on the left and on the right, because people want "anything but THIS!"

Both parties are complicit and work together to fuck the people over.

[-] SirDerpy@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

If voting just makes it worse slower, then what can We the People do to make it better?

[-] hypnoton@discuss.online 9 points 3 months ago

Advocacy. Mouth to mouth education like what you are already doing. Too few people understand yet. We need more people with this same understanding first.
Direct action, and I don't exclude anything. Protests and strikes make an impact, but they are just two forms of direct action out of infinity. Direct action means taking matters into your own hands instead of delegating.

The thing is, if you want to take the more radical forms of direct action while still staying relatively safe yourself, you need broad popular support. See #1 above.

Eventually, the primary beneficiaries and boosters of the status quo, the billionaires, will fold.

[-] SirDerpy@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

if you want to take the more radical forms of direct action while still staying relatively safe yourself, you need broad popular support.

Yesterday you said you needed a good idea to gum up the works.

Is it a transcendental condition of a "medium-term world you'd wish to live in" that the majority wisely chose it?

If it is then I can understand why you, specifically, would be in need. My friend is a philosophy professor seemingly stuck in an endless loop of mediocrity mucking with this. It's contrary to the vast majority of human history, perhaps some divine fallacy and privilege difficult to rationalize today.

But, if you've rationalized that a minority will choose wisely and another minority will choose correctly but not wisely, then I think you don't need broad popular support and good ideas. That's what happens afterwards. Today, we need to be better than popular and good.

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?

Expediency asks the question - is it politic?

Vanity asks the question - is it popular?

But conscience asks the question - is it right?

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.

What do you need to make a difference?

[-] hypnoton@discuss.online 2 points 3 months ago

Is it a transcendental condition of a "medium-term world you'd wish to live in" that the majority wisely chose it?

What an amazing question. God bless you and everything around you that is supportive of you.

Right now the answer is yes. I am too weak (and likely insufficiently knowledgeable) now to create my own justice for myself. So yes I need support. A lot of support.

But even when I won't need the support, as best as I can figure myself out now, I still prefer the aesthetics of camaraderie over the aesthetics of me walking over a pile of corpses.

Bottom line, I need at least a few friends who fully understand and support me and my interests, no matter what. I enjoy spending time in solitude but I don't want to be absolutely alone, no matter what, even if I had all the power.

I am in training right now. I won't always be as dumb and as weak as I am now.

But, if you've rationalized that a minority will choose wisely and another minority will choose correctly but not wisely, then I think you don't need broad popular support and good ideas. That's what happens afterwards. Today, we need to be better than popular and good.

I don't disagree.

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.

I am a treasure of my own world. And to me you are also a precious treasure. I want neither of us to sacrifice too soon, but let us make our own wisest decisions. Power without wisdom is blind. Wisdom without power is impotent. Let it be so.

[-] SirDerpy@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

I'll stop fucking around then.

Corpses? Proton Mail.

There's so much more possible before the one set of idiots or another makes a bloody mess inevitable. Your merit assigns responsibility, our situation urgency. Please, get to in-person group study Capital, where you will excel. Then, accept the offer to a small team with operational security.

I do not think that life will change for the better without an assault on the Establishment, which goes on exploiting the wretched of the earth. This belief lies at the heart of the concept of revolutionary suicide. Thus it is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions. This possibility is important, because much in human existence is based upon hope without any real understanding of the odds. Indeed, we are all—Black and white alike—ill in the same way, mortally ill. But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.

Revolutionary suicide does not mean that I and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. When reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death. We will have to be driven out with a stick.

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024

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